elementary and junior high school in buffalo that teaches the regular new york state curriculum plus a lot more. >> we must instill in our children what it takes be a responsible, caring individual. and a concert honoring defiant jewish prisoners in a nazi concentration camp. welcome.

i'm bob abernethy. it's good to have you with us. violent demonstrations broke out in haiti this week over allegations of fraud in the recent presidential election. this on top of the growing cholera epidemic. several relief organizations say the unrest has been preventing them from treating the thousands of haitians suffering from the illness. more than 2,000 people have died and more than a hundred thousand have become sick. our managing editor kim lawton has been talking to relief workers in haiti. kim, what do they tell you? >> reporter: well they're telling me that the situation is a lot more difficult than many

people here may realize the political unrest, protests in the streets, sometimes violent clashes have really created a situation where it's hard for people to get around. many of the relief groups and the faith-based groups have been on lockdown for several days in port au prince but also in other cities around haiti. >> lockdown meaning they don't go anywhere? >> reporter: they are told don't go anywhere. don't go on the streets. and i understand that you can't even get anywhere if you try to get on the streets. there are these big barricades, and even stones and rocks. sadly, haitians are dragging bble from the earthquake that still hasn't en cleared away. they are dragging that into the streets so people can't get around, which means the workers can't get to the cholera clinics. they can't get to the rebuilding projects and it just puts all of that help further back. >> and as you indicated it does seem as if it's worse than a lot of us had thought. >> reporter: well, as you know, i was supposed to be down there

right now with a t.v. crew for our program. our flight got cancelled. there was an episcopal delegation with the presiding bishop of the u.s. episcopal church. their flight got, their plans got canceled -- um, postponed, anyway. they are trying to figure out what to do. a lot of people can't co and go because the airports have been closed. that's how bad the situation has been. >> yeah, and all this pent up furry from a year ago when the earthquake, almost a year, when the earthquake hit, it just must have magnified the response to the election results. >> reporter: well, some of the people i have been talking to say this protest and all this violence isn't just about politics and the election. it's about the frustration of the people and their plight. so long with, you know, not having a place to live. a million and a half people still living in tents and tarps. now the cholera epidemic. and they're just very frustrated. >> kim, many thanks. in other news, congress failed to act this week in washington oseveral issues of importance to the religious community. jewish, christian and muslims

groups had lobbied hard for the dream act which would have created a path to citizenship for the undocumented children of illegal immigrants. but that legislation stalled in the senate, as did the attempt to repeal don't ask don't tell, the ban on gays serving openly in the military. and it's still uncertain whether the senate will ratify the start trey onuclear weapons. in norway, chinese dissident lui xiaobo was awarded the nobel peace prize. the chinese government refused to let xiaobo attend the ceremony. he remains in prison. but the prize committee left an empty chair to dramatize xiaobo's absence. several demonstrators gathered in norway to protest china's record on human rights. in beijing, authorities increased security at the country's universities in anticipation of protests there.

in california, a federal appeals court heard arguments in the legal challenge to proposition 8, the state's ban on gay marriage. in august, a federal judge ruled the ban was unconstitutional. this week, leaders of several religious groups issued a statement calling for the protection of traditional marriage. they said marriage between a man and woman is fundamental to the well being of all society. signers included prominent catholics, evangelicals and mormons, as well as sikh and orthodox jewish leaders. a new report says the institution of marriage is "in trouble" among -cald mile americans, the 58% of adults with a high school diploma but no four year college degree. divorce rates are up and in what the report calls a "historic reversal," commitment to marriage among the moderately educated is now less strong than it is among the highly educated. among the reasons listed are unemployment and falling church attendance. bradford wilcox of the university of virginia, the

author of the report, says children and adults ian intact family are more likely than others to succeed in life. "the retreat from marriage in middle america," says wilcox, "means that all too many americans will not be able to realize the american dream." now, a special report on a private muslim school in buffalo. the curriculum meets all the new york state requirements, but students here are also taught values, discipline, arabic and god-consciousness. lucky severson reports. >> reporter: the first thing an outsider might notice at the universal school in buffalo is how well behaved the students are. the chaos that sometimes erupts between classes at public schools is not to be found here. universal is an islamic school for students in pre-k through eighth grade.

it's one of 240 private islamic schools in the country and is supported through tuition and fundraising. kathy jamil is the principal. >> we hope to instill in our children what it tak to be a responsible, caring and giving person who is god-conscious, and we believe we can only do that if we develop a whole child. so we focus on academics, but it's just one small part of everything else, because we actually feel if we can hit the other realms, we feel like the academics just skyrocket. >> reporter: god-consciousness, they say, is meant to be a constant state of awareness of allah throughout the day. tamer osman directs the islamic studies program. >> there are times when students are traveling in the hallway that maybe an adult's eye may not be on them for just that moment. if they remember that god is watching, they may not do those type of things that we find in other schools, whether it is ridicule other students or bullying. we have a lot less of those types of things at the school here, and i think part of that

reason is because we are trying to inculcate the idea of god-consciousness in the children. >> reporter: they are reminded of god five times each day during prayer. universal is a state-accredited school so the students are taught the same curriculum as those in public schools and their test scores are on grade level or above. but here they're also taught arabic and islamic studies, including the quran and the sayings of the prophet muhammad. they learn about values from the teachings of the prophet. >> the prophet, peace be upon him, as we believe, is the best of all mankind, and he embodied all the beautiful qualities and characteristics that we want to work on in our lives. >> one of the wisdoms in islamic schools today is that if you look at our core american values, they coincide with a lot of our islamic values. >> reporter: those shared interests apparently include the love of sports, like soccer, which is popular in many of the

different countries these kids' families emigrated from. but one of the challenges at universal is to separate the religion from the attitudes of the culture they left behind-attitudes, for instance, detrimental to women. >> i work with some domestic violence clients here in the us on relation to immigrant families and muslim families and with the conversations that i have with the court systems, you will hear a man walk on, sit on the stand and say "i have the right to," from a religious perspective, and we are there saying you absolutely do not. you clearly don't understand your faith tradition. >> reporter: islam considers homosexuality a sin, and in some muslim countries the punishment is severe. >> being gay is forbidden in islam but you cannot make fun of that group or people who are like that. you're supposed to be nice to everybody, but it's still forbidden. you can't do that. >> as muslims, we shouldn't be judgmental. just like in many of the other faiths it is frowned upon. it's not seen as something that's praiseworthy. but at the same time, it's not -- we don't see it as if the

person does that then that's it, they are condemned forever. >> reporter: the school found its home in an unlikely place, a former catholic church and convent. students from universal and st. monica catholic school share interfaith programs throughout the year. nancy langer is with st. monica. >> what i've noticed is that they don't seem to look at each other and see any differences. they seem to accept each other for who they are, and they've become instant friends. it's really wonderful. >> reporter: universal opened its doors three days before the 9/11 terrorists attacks. suddenly there were bomb threats. police were patrolling the school, not a good time to be a muslim in america, and it was perhaps the worst time to open an islamic school. >> that evening we had an emergency board meeting. there was just silence. everyone was quiet. we didn't know what to say. we didn't know what to think. we didn't know what to do. >> reporter: ultimately they decided that keeping the school open presented an opportunity to reach out to the inner-city neighborhood that surrounds the

school. ray barker teaches social studies. he's n a muslim but is impressed with the mission of the school. >> it is really looking at developing the whole person through a moral structure set up by the religion. it very much is creating a strong foundation for them for these years and the rest of their lives. >> you just do good in school. >> reporter: so are you good all the time? for some parents, learning good values was only one reason they wanted their children in a religious school. even before she gave birth to her three kids, maha zaatreh didn't care whether they went to an islamic school or a catholic school as long as it wasn't a public school. >> discipline, really, that was my concern. discipline, respect to their parents, respect to older people. that was my first goal. >> prophet muhammad, peace and blessing be upon him, he talked about how important gentleness

was that god is gentle, and he loves gentleness. at our school you would find it very rare that you'd have a teacher raise their voice. >> reporter: they may not raise their voice but they do achieve discipline. listen to alet and hakim. >> you know that room downstairs right before you come up here, the library? in there you spend the whole day with the guy at the desk downstairs, brother jabor. oh, man, he can give some punishments. >> reporter: like what? >> he gives us all this writing to do. sometimes, like last year, there was the other hall monitor. they're kind of strict. if you walked down the wrong way, they make you walk up and down like 80 times. 12k3w4 >> it gets me worried to know the fact that when my daughter is a teenager, she's going to start thinking, "i want to date, i want to go here, i want to go there." >> reporter: she needn't worry about universal. dating is not allowed here for a host of reasons. some are found in the quran's

views on chastity when it refers to miriam, whom christians call mary, the mother of jesus. >> in the quran god uses miriam as the example for our young girls, on how he had so much love for her because of her chastity, because of her modesty before god, because of her purity and her internal beauty, and that's all part of it. we don't want to necessarily come down on th and say dating is bad, dating is bad. rather, we want to tell them how positive a healthy family is. >> reporter: why do you think it is that they don't want you to date? >> because you don't want any like diseases. like because of the stds going around. >> reporter: values are enforced and behaviors like gossip and bullying strongly condemned. bullying is a very real and personal concern for these students. some come looking for a safe environment. why were you bullied? >> i was bullied because i'm muslim. i got like punched a couple of times.

>> reporter: girls who wear the head scarf, the hijab, often feel the insecurity of being the object of stares, of being different. some wear their hijabs only at school. others wear them as a badge of honor. >> i started wearing hijab when i was little in first grade. i have been wearing it since then, outside even, and people just used to look at me, and then i used to have to act like them and i didn't want to do that. i wanted to be me. >> reporter: so it made you feel bad. do you think muslims get a bad rap in this country? >> because they don't know who we are. >> if they see the truth, it's very obvious that we are good people. >> reporter: universal started with 17 students. today they have over 100. the eventual goal is to expand universal to include high school. for "religion and ethics newsweekly," i'm lucky severson

in buffalo, new york. in other news, new allegations of catholic clergy misconduct, this time in the netherlands. an investigative commission has released figures showing that nearly 2,000 people had made complaints in the past of sexual or physical abuse. almost all the cases are decades old. a high-ranking church official in the netherlands has said the dutch church "knew nothing" about such activity. in one of the concentration camps during world war ii, there was a jewish prison choir. the members learned various famo famous requiem mass. survivors said they had great inner strength from singing the requiem to their captors.

bob faw reports. >> every note. get inside of every note. inside of every note. >> reporter: in a washington, d.c., church an impassioned conductor implores his choir. >> very nice. what you're doing is very nice, and there's no room for that. it has to be extraordinary, the sort of thing that you will remember all of your lives. >> reporter: whenever he can, murry sidlin urges them to do more, because what they're rehearsing, what they are trying to commemorate, is another performance by another choir in horrific circumstances: jewish prisoners in a nazi concentration camp. >> to us it's just damn words. they leave the rehearsal and walk over bodies to get back to their barracks. we cannot be indifferent. >> reporter: this music, verdi's

lyrical mass for the dead, is a full-throated testament to the majesty and judgment of god, profound even in this rehearsal at washington's kennedy center. but it was perhaps never more powerful or poignant than its performance on june 23, 1944 in the concentration camp, terezin, just outside prague. when jewish prisoners sang the requiem to their nazi captors, that catholic mass, says terezin survivor vera schiff, gave prisoners a way to defy the nazis. >> the text of the latin prayers suggests that we all will be judged by the almighty, and this would include the germans. that was a promise. that the day will come when we will all be facing the ultimate,

the final judge, and that gave us a great deal of satisfaction and hope. >> it was cathartic, therapeutic, and important for them to remain dignified. they responded to the worst of mankind with the best of mankind. this is our way of fighting back. >> reporter: in the cold, filth, and misery of a camp like this, a romanian-born conductor, rafael schaechter, gathered 150 fellow prisoners, and in a dank basement with just one score and a broken piano taught them by rote verdi's sublime work. choir member edgar krasa says schaechter was extraordinary. >> socially he was a wonderful person, but once he sat behind the piano he was a real tyrant. >> the survivors who sang in this chorus say -- said to me that when he started work on the requiem, and this is a quote,

"he was like a crazed man on a mission." he began to say things to them such as, "we can sing to them what we cannot say to them." >> reporter: through the words in this catholic liturgy, a jewish chorus could stand up to the nazis by letting them know what ultimately matters. nazi propaganda films were made at terezin to give the false impression jews were happy there, well fed and cared for. when officials from the international red cross visited, things were spruced up even more. the nazis asked rafael schaechter to perform that requiem for their guests. they probably couldn't understand the mass sung in latin, but schaechter and his choir understood exactly what they were doing. >> here i can really make a

difference and not to all mankind. to myself, to my friends, to my colleagues, to my family i can make a difference. i can sing what i can't say. i can respond in the best possible way to the unspeakable horror in which i find myself. >> reporter: performers could be deported or worse, warned jewish elders in the camp, if the nazis understood those lyrics. so schaechter gave his chorus a choice. >> he told us about the danger and said if you-whoever is afraid, there is the door, and you can go. nobody left. >> reporter: no one left? >> no. >> reporter: the lyrics of the

requiem and their hidden meaning were the source of the prisoners' defiance. the second and longest movement, for example, tells of the day of wrath. "the day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in ashes. how great will be the terror when the judge comes" is how the latin is translated. >> it's very simple. god's in charge of humanity, and if anybody fools around with that they're going to hear from god. >> reporter: or take the final section-libera me. >> "liberate me eternally from eternal death." terazín was eternal death. through this music they found the mechanism by which they could sing to god with assurance that god's presence is with

them, and so i think they found in this work a spiritual reawakening or a spiritual reassurance. >> reporter: the singing of verdi at terezin had a profound impact on the prisoners and singers, like survivor marianka zadikow-may, speaking recently at a symposium. >> we wanted to be liberated and just hope that there is a loving hashem in heaven who will hear you and liberate you. >> reporter: in the wretched camp, says survivor vera schiff, verdi's requiem was a lifeline. >> it was part of the defiance, to keep up our spirits, to keep us in a frame of mind, you want to live, you want to live another day. that was helping over the hunger, over the illnesses and

depravation, and that carries you a long way under the circumstances when we feared for our life day by day. >> we felt great because otherwise we had no opportunity to show the nazis that we don't, we're not afraid of them. >> reporter: schaechter conducted verdi's requiem 16 times at terezin. after the final 1944 performance, he and most of the chorus were shipped off to the gas chambers at auschwitz. for the few survivors, remembering brings pain and pride. >> i think it brings back twofold emotions -- the emotion of course of sadness, because in my case i've lost all my entire family. but simultaneously i think i find that it was a great achievement of what people can do under unimaginable circumstances. >> this was not commemorating

death. it was commemorating the beauty and importance of life. >> reporter: when the requiem ends in the multimedia concert murry sidlin created to commemorate terezin, the mournful wail of a train whistle sounds, and as the audience watches film of jewish prisoners being transported to nazi crematoriums one solo violin plays an ancient jewish song which the condemned sang on their way to death, a haunting tribute to terezin, where in defiance there was affirmation, indeed a kind of triumph. for "religion and ethics newsweekly," this is bob faw in washington.

that's our program for now. i'm bob abernethy. there's much more on our website. you can comment on all of our stories and share them. audio and video podcasts are also available. you can follow us on facebook and twitter, find us on youtube, and watch us on smart phones and iphones with our new mobile web app. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, ten year old singer jackie evancho performs "o holy night" at thursday's lighting of the national christmas tree in washington.